The UK's favourite print show - MacMate

SHORT RUN
IAN POLLOCK, DI programme manager at Presstek UK, looks after
the largest installed base of Presstek machines in Europe. Presstek is
now bringing to market the 75DI, a B2 press with a six minute job to
job make ready. Job ganging on this format sheet will create a highly
competitive combination he argues.
for £16,000 with the £160,000 Presstek, even though there was
no queue of work for it. However, the company needed to
improve quality to stay ahead of the franchise chains and offer
something more. It has had a big impact on productivity and also
on efficiency, Godfrey saying that that good colour is reached in
ten sheets, a marked improvement from trying to print four
colour from the two-colour press. The investment is about
maximising profit now rather than for some point in the future.
LANCASTER IS EQUALLY ADAMANT that the XL will pay its
way well before inkjet printing ultimately takes over. The big
difference that he has noted came with the £160,000 investment
in the Impress unit. The extra cost will be justified in terms of
the speed of makeready and reduced waste that follows. “There’s
a lot of mileage left in the XL. I reckon that it will be ten years
before inkjet can undercut a machine like the XL which will be
paid for before then.”
Compared to Falkland’s HP Indigo, the offset press is
competitive at runs of 200 sheets, because of the cost associated
with running the digital press. What would change that would
be a drastic reduction in toner prices and a consequent fall in
click charge rates.
For Alan Dixon, however, the test is less about the technology
used to print the job, than optimising the process around it.
“There are algorithms that can work out which way any job
should go,” he says. “And MIS needs to connect, they can quote
jobs efficiently but need to create production jobs that can be
grouped together to gain the production efficiencies. Not many
have done this.”
This is how Precision came to write its own software, Nash
explains, eliminating operator intervention until the guillotine
stage when printing digitally. The company is now looking to do
24 May 2011 www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
ALAN DIXON set up Workflowz to deliver a range of automated
applications designed to increase efficiency and bring automation to
job creation and production. Among the tools he carries is imposition
software for job ganging and web to print. Customers include brand
owners and publishers as well as printers.
the same for offset printing and using technology to make the
decision which way a job will go. Heidelberg likewise plans to
offer software to make this choice as it rolls out Ricoh digital
presses alongside its Anicolor press.
But while technology can be highly effective, Dixon stresses
that a final human check is necessary before any job is sent out.
“Technology allows you to make mistakes faster,” he says.
Morgana follows the minimal touch credo, combining several
tasks into one machine. Its CardXtra Plus, for example, automates
production of business cards, turning what is an 18-cut process
on a guillotine into a single button operation. “You can print 250
business cards in 12 seconds and then need a lengthy process to
finish them,” says Baum.
Other Morgana systems will crease, fold and stitch in one
pass. “One of our most popular products is a preset finishing
device,” he adds. However, the finishing end must continue to
make up for the deficiencies in the previous processes,
compensating for image shift for example, coping with static and
slippery material.
MORGANA IS NICELY PLACED as short run demands simple
to operate automated finishing technology, worlds apart from the
heavy duty folders and stitching lines that offset printers use.
“It’s all about minimising the number of manual touches,” he
continues. Rockley has noted that with short run customers, the
finishing unit is often positioned alongside an Anicolor with the
press operator also in charge of the finishing machine, using flat
sheet feeders rather than folded sections on stitching lines.
But while finishing needs to be rethought in the context of
short run printing, the table was in agreement that the prepress
end is even more important. PDF is not a universal format, and
even where a PDF is supplied, this is not a panacea. Godfrey is